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Best GPU for 1680x1050

J

jasonjlx

n00b
Joined
May 25, 2010
Messages
7
I'm in the process of updating my old comp, so far I've got everything but my graphics card.

win 7
mushkin redline ddr3 4gb
evga p55 le
i5 720
WD Caviar Black
8800GT (looking to upgrade)
pc p&c silencer 950W

Started getting into Bad Company 2 and, I gotta run the game on all low to get smooth gameplay. Also, noticing some fps spike drops in other games like Starcraft 2, when big battles come up.

I would like to keep it to a single card solution. Was looking at the 5770, but after a buddy got one, I wasn't to impressed with its performance in bad company 2. (his system is similar) So I've been looking at the 5850 or GTX 470 possibly. Just seems like 300$ cards might be overkill for my res? Any ideas?
 
My 4890 runs that game fine at 1920x1080. Should be perfectly fine for 1680x1050.

Question is, do you foresee a display upgrade within a year?
 
Uh, the 5850 maxes out everything with max aa in CCC at 16x10.

A 4890 isn;t enough for Crysis/Metro on max with high aa at that res.

In addition, the 4890 lacks DX 11 so it realy can't max BC2 at ANY res/
 
5850, no question about it.

Now if you wanted to go Eyefiniti, run 3D (which is coming to ATI eventually). or game in 1080p on an HDTV, you'd want to go bigger.
 
Nah I don't think I'll be moving up res anytime soon.

Now, if I'll be going for a 5850, would spending the extra 50$ on the GTX 470 be worth it?
 
jasonjlx said:
Nah I don't think I'll be moving up res anytime soon.

Now, if I'll be going for a 5850, would spending the extra 50$ on the GTX 470 be worth it?
Click to expand...

No, the 470 is not worth it. It is rumored to already be discontinued, anyway.

Honestly, grab the 480 if you can.
 
IRSmurf said:
No, the 470 is not worth it. It is rumored to already be discontinued, anyway.

Honestly, grab the 480 if you can.
Click to expand...
its not being discontinued. the site that reported that was way off and other people just ran with the rumor. Nvidia already officially replied and said that they certainly are not dropping it.

OP, at that res the 5850 will be the best card for the money. why on earth you have a 950 watt psu is a question for another day though.
 
the idea that graphics cards scale up linearly with resolution is flat wrong, even suggesting that increased resolution needs increased memory is a stretch (the vast majority of vram is held by textures, not pixel information, unless your at huge AA levels).

Performance varies drastically across game engines. Seems obvious, but evidently it needs to be stated once in a while. Metro 2033 is going to "need" more than the 5k series can reasonably provide to play at max in game and 1680 X 1050.

To go all mathmatical for a sec, The graphics card market always looks like a logarithm of the greatest integer function with performance as the output and available cash as the input.

A better question to ask would be "What's [H]'s favorite card?" I think the answer you're going to see most often is the 5850. Often the performance-oriented "sweet spot" is 2 or 3 SKU's down from the top end card available. Right now AMD's offerings are a whole lot more enticing than Nvidia's, and working our way down: 5970 -> 5870 -> 5850 -> 5830. Dispite the 5830 Winning H's gold award I dont think its a very good card. It falls just short of being linearly in line with the 5850 in a market that's supposed to be (as mentioned above) logarithmic --in other words, the 5850 is a better buy.

I was aiming to get one myself, along with two P22 monitors from Dell... that is, until I got real about my tuition.
 
1680x1050 or 1600x900, all details on high, 2x or 4x AA/ 16x AF?

HD 5830. After you've overclocked it.
 
ragejg said:
1680x1050 or 1600x900, all details on high, 2x or 4x AA/ 16x AF?

HD 5830. After you've overclocked it.
Click to expand...
you are trying way to hard to justify your 5830 purchase. you buying that card to replace a 4870 was silly whether you want to admit it or not.
 
I got a 5850 (875core 1200mem) and it runs BC2 at 16x10 4xAA rest max. Frames do drop to mid 40s sometimes in MP, maybe less in loadsa smoke. AFAIK the 5850 is identical perf to 470 in BC2 so even from a pure performance perspective u'd gain nothing from getting a 470. If that sounds about right to you get the 5850, if not spend more!

Coming from an 8800gt, I got basically no gains in GTA4 or AC2, and massive gains in JC2 in case u play (or plan on playing) any of them.
 
5850 is alot better bang-for-bucks than the 470. For your application this seems a pretty easy choice.
 
cannondale06 said:
you are trying way to hard to justify your 5830 purchase. you buying that card to replace a 4870 was silly whether you want to admit it or not.
Click to expand...

No.

Thanks though. I know enough about GPUs to make informed decisions, trust me (one of the main reasons I got it FWIW was to have a compare card vs GTX 460/465 in a review). And maybe you need to look at some of the reviews out there showing how this card operates when overclocked. It is extremely solid @ 16x9 & 16x10. I'll be posting a review soon anyway of this card vs. 4890 which will address the two's relative performance vs each other.
 
jasonjlx said:
I'm in the process of updating my old comp, so far I've got everything but my graphics card.

win 7
mushkin redline ddr3 4gb
evga p55 le
i5 720
WD Caviar Black
8800GT (looking to upgrade)
pc p&c silencer 950W

Started getting into Bad Company 2 and, I gotta run the game on all low to get smooth gameplay. Also, noticing some fps spike drops in other games like Starcraft 2, when big battles come up.

I would like to keep it to a single card solution. Was looking at the 5770, but after a buddy got one, I wasn't to impressed with its performance in bad company 2. (his system is similar) So I've been looking at the 5850 or GTX 470 possibly. Just seems like 300$ cards might be overkill for my res? Any ideas?
Click to expand...



Could you list your freinds specs? If he had anything less then a quad core that could explain the performance in BFBC2, especially if it was in dx11. My sig rig gets totally smooth gameplay running everything maxed out in dx10 @1920x1200. The q9550 is at stock speeds. Ask your freind to tone it down to dx10, it should run much better.
 
47 avg fps with GTX 285 SSC is ok for me at 1680x1050.
5850 should give you about 52 avarage FPS at that res. might consider the 5870 if you have a long upgrade cycle or planning to play heavier games.
 
Well, the reason for my 950w, I know I don't need that much juice at all. I used to have an OCZ 650w, died on me, when I RMA'd it back to OCZ, they sent me this pc p&c 950w unit. So decided to keep it in case, I decided to run a serious SLI setup in the future.

My buddies comp, he has an i5 720 as well, diff with his setup is, mobo is an msi model, and hes got corsair ram. Like I said, the 5770 just didn't impress me much performance wise. Seems like back in the day when I got my 8800GT it offered a lot more performance for the dollar then the 5770 does.

I usually have long upgrade cycles, and to me the 5770 is already long in the tooth since you have to start turning down some options.

I guess its just a bad time for the gpu market, cause I honestly don't rem the last time I had to spend ~$300 for a gpu card to game at a lower res. Initially, the 5850 was supposed to retail for what $250-270 tops? That would have been stellar.

Anyway thanks for all the info, I have a buddy that is thinking about selling his GTX 470, would let it go for $300. Hes unsure at the moment though. If that goes through, I'll possibly pick that up from him, if not, I'll get myself a 5850 and call it a day.
 
The 8800GT's hit $300+ within weeks of launch. Honestly, a 5850 is not *needed* for 1680x1050, a slightly OC'ed 5770 should handle pretty much all non Crysis/Metro 2033 games at that res. I have a friend with a i3 540 + 5770 and he runs BC2 with no trouble at same res. Depends on what your minimum tolerated FPS is, of course. If you like things to be in the 60+ range, you always have to spend more.

Grabbing a 5850 now at $280ish is actually a pretty good deal, even compared to the GPU market 2-3 years ago. I went from a pair of 8800GT to a 5850, I was impressed in the overall performance bumps, but especially the minimum FPS department.
 
ragejg said:
1680x1050 or 1600x900, all details on high, 2x or 4x AA/ 16x AF?

HD 5830. After you've overclocked it.
Click to expand...

Ewwww....

5830 is a fail!

It has less shaders, less OC headroom than the 5850.

THe 5850 is only like 40$ more, you're getting a vastly suporier product with a very nice OC headroom, and that sips power.

Yes, the 5830 is clocked higher than the 5850, and is still a lot slower. TRHat means more heat, more power use, less OC headroom

And that totally rapes the 5830.

IT bad enought that you bought a 5830, dont try to rope other people into it!

Even the 4890 RAPES the 5830, for 60$-120$ (200$ Newegg, 120$ Ebay) less and the 4870 just about ties it at less than 1/2 the price.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
The 8800GT's hit $300+ within weeks of launch. Honestly, a 5850 is not *needed* for 1680x1050, a slightly OC'ed 5770 should handle pretty much all non Crysis/Metro 2033 games at that res. I have a friend with a i3 540 + 5770 and he runs BC2 with no trouble at same res. Depends on what your minimum tolerated FPS is, of course. If you like things to be in the 60+ range, you always have to spend more.

Grabbing a 5850 now at $280ish is actually a pretty good deal, even compared to the GPU market 2-3 years ago. I went from a pair of 8800GT to a 5850, I was impressed in the overall performance bumps, but especially the minimum FPS department.
Click to expand...

....

The OC'd 5770 can handle all non BC2 ish games at 16x10.

To bad the OP plays BC2.
 
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